InterAction Forum Study Tour 2015
Event Report
Select each report below to read the voice of each participant.
Report 1 : InterAction Forum 1st Day
"Seeing Foreign Affairs will be a Good Chance to see Our Own"
InterAction Forum 2015 has just kicked off with the presence of around 1,000 participants from 25 different countries.
Dr. W. Easterly from NY University pointed out in the Keynote speech that experts and technical supports from abroad will not be a solution to eradicate poverty, but advocacy could do by taking examples how the colonialism and racial discrimination became a history.
In order to do relevant advocacy, he insisted "we protest our government".
Mr. Samuel Worthington, President of InterAction, also said that we should hold our own government accountable as one of our ways to involve ourselves for making a better society.
When we look back on our own current Japanese affairs, these messages from the two prominent gentlemen really matter.
Because we, Japanese organizations, do humanitarian or developmental activities overseas, we first need to focus on our own government and own society. I can say, "seeing the foreign affairs will be a good chance to see our own".
Report 2 : InterAction Forum 2nd Day
"Stick to Your Own Awareness and Take Actions to Solve It"
It is the second day of InterAction 2015 forum today.
The second day started with workshop. There are around 8 workshops with different theme that you can join. Every participants of the forum is supposed to choose one. Workshop goes with discussion with participants or panel discussion in an interactive way. Also, banquet was held at night, which was a good opportunity to meet a lot of new people.
What impressed me today was that every participant has their own awareness of social issues and takes some actions to solve it. It is not easy to attend this forum financially, but I met some people saying that they attended this forum to build networking with new people. It is like investing time and money to create better future.
InterAction forum is such an inspiring forum. I am very excited what movement is going to happen after this forum.
Report 3 : InterAction Forum 3rd Day
"Think Globally, Act Locally"
We had successfully 3rd and final day of InterAction Forum 2015.
Two workshop sessions from the morning, and Mr. Ben Rhodes who is Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting had closing plenary titled "Support, defend, and sustain: The Relevance of U.S. Response to Closing Civic Space." White House is working for the establishment of new civil society innovation hubs in regions around the world. POTUS (President of the United States) said partnering & protecting civil society is a part of American leadership.
After the closing plenary, we had final panel discussions on shrinking space for Civil Society with Lindsay Coates, Dr. Sarah E. Mendelson, Maina Kiai, and Douglas Rutzed. Panelists argued that the log frame has done as much to kill civil society as governments. Donors expect us to be quiet contract deliverers who don't have a voice. After this discussion, points were moved to the value of civil society. Civil Society space is not a Western value. It is a universal value. However civic space is challenged globally. In 90 plus countries need to support, engage & empower home-grown voices. But Civil society cannot be saved by someone 1000s miles away. Must be fought for again & again where contested. Civil Society space starts in your neighborhoods. Cities represent an opportunity to strengthen.
These discussions represent the saying "Think globally, act locally".
Report 4 : FEMA
"'We have to be Linked' - The Importance of Coordinated Effort during Disaster Response"
FEMA responds to disasters with "Survivor Centric, Whole Community Approach". However without close collaboration with NGO communities, disaster response will not be possible. "We have to be linked", Mr. Alex Amparo from FEMA told to TOMODACHI delegation. The federal government agency values the partnerships with NGOs and relies on NGO capabilities to support disaster affected populations.
In order to provide better response, FEMA works with NGO community such as NVOAD on regular basis, even during no disaster times. Mr. Amparo said "It is when you can build more trusting and closer partnerships, so when the disaster happens, we know each other well and immediately respond together."
Report 5 : US-JC Dinner
"Dinner with US-JP Council Members"
We, Japanese delegation members, had a fantastic dinner with US-JP Council members! Thanking to their hospitality, we could enjoy the fruitful conversation through the dinner time.
The thing I would like to describe here is the touching speech made by a chairperson of US-JP council. It made us deeply realize that this TOMODACHI program can be the bridge between the US and Japan.
Also, we really enjoyed a bunch of food that made us mostly happy. Hoping we can continue and develop our good relationship from now on too!
Report 6 : OFDA
"OFDA Visit"
After we passed through the tough security controls at Ronald Reagan Building, a Japanese delegation visited the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance(OFDA) on 26th of June in the Morning. We got a briefing from the Disaster Response specialist Ms. Leslie Jorgensen. She shared her experiences with us how the OFDA system works and how the OFDA responses at emergency situation.
Several NGOs of our group have received fund from OFDA/USAID or have communications already, however we were excited to learn more for better response and further collaborations.
After a long Q&A session, we moved to the disaster response operations center which activated Response Management Teams bases, and Leslie explained about machineries and functions.
Even if we as a humanitarian community have reliable quick response systems, we hope that there will be no disasters in the world.
Report 7 : InterAction Orientation
"Lessons from InterAction"
We visited InterAction office on 26th and met Mr. Samuel Worthington (President/CEO), Mr. John Ruthrauff (Director of International Advocacy) and Mr. Basile Pissalidis (Director of Security).
They were kind enough to have time for us and shared their knowledge regarding member NGO encouragement, advocacy policies and security management & training. The time flew by but the meeting was so impressive, thought-provoking for members.
Report 8 : Capitol Hill Tour
"Capitol Hill Tour"
On the final afternoon of the InterAction Forum Study Tour, the Japanese NGO Leaders took part in a guided tour around Capitol Hill in Washington DC.
The delegation was extremely fortunate to be shown around by representatives of the office of Congressman Gregory W Meeks, who acted as extremely knowledgeable, passionate and amicable guides. The participants were able to explore the rich history of the United States and the numerous significant events that had taken place in the Capitol Hill area. Some of the highlights included the breathtaking U.S. Capitol Rotunda, the Old Senate Chamber and numerous dramatic statues which stood proudly in the elegant hallways.
The tour was both educational and enjoyable; the perfect conclusion to an extremely rewarding and memorable week in Washington DC.
Report 9 : NVOAD
"Domestic Disaster Response Needs Strong Tie between Public Sector & Civil Society"
On June 25th, delegation visited the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster -NVOAD, a CSO network on domestic disaster response and disaster risk reduction at American Red Cross office in central Washington, DC.
Ms. Amy Mintz of American Red Cross, as International Committee Chair of NVOAD, and Ms. Jessica Bettinger, NVOAD Member Services Manager made a brief presentation about NVOAD. Other participants of NVOAD included Adventist Community Services -ACS, Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, and The Salvation Army. Also Mr. Jacob Vawter of FEMA attended the meeting as government counterpart of NVOAD.
What I was most interested was governance -membership and its expansion in history. It was established in 1970 with seven original members, and now expanded to 59 national member plus 56 States/Territories -SVOAD. It is also networking many county or municipal level voluntary agencies -CVOAD nationwide. When a big disaster occurs, the first responders are local government and CSOs, not national level, therefore each NVAOD member who is particularly concerned with this specific location makes initial response as well as coordinating both in this location and national level as NVOAD with FEMA. If the Governor of the state/territory does not ask for national level of assistance to FEMA, FEMA basically does not respond to this particular disaster, then NVOAD function on coordination with the government would be very limited.
NVOAD also has program on capacity building of state-level and county-level CSOs and support to them when disaster occurred to their location as well as member organizations direct assistance. But NVAOD is not the organization at the top of all SVOAD and CVOAD but a single organization which has 501(c)(3) status (tax exemption benefit) and each SVOAD and CVOAD is also independent from NVOAD, some of which has the same status while others are not. According to their explanation, NVOAD is rather small entity as a national umbrella organization in DC, which consists of 2 staff members and the annual budget is around one million US dollars. Therefore, it is difficult to collect all the data of SVOAD and CVOAD, or find gaps among them in order to support them strategically. Most activities of NVOAD are managed by each committee as member CSOs’ voluntary initiatives.
Several participants of Japanese participants are interested in how and why coordination and collaboration with the government is functioning on disaster response and also preparedness, which Japanese CSOs are always feeling a big challenge in daily activities in Japan. Interesting answer to this question was from FEMA, which was that CSOs have a lot of expertise and experience in this field both general knowledge as well as region specific one, so it is rational and natural to work together and information exchange with those CSOs while limited public resources.
In the Japanese context on this matter, it is not simple for Japanese CSOs to do the same ways as NVOAD does, since nature of civil society and legislation is so different. However at present, we Japanese CSOs still do not have clear mechanism or institution between the government and civil society as FEMA and NVOAD, and this is absolutely crucial to have such a coordination mechanism on both disaster response and preparedness. To do so, I personally believe Japanese CSOs need to build more capacity on commitment to the national and regional policy as well as operational skills and public relations, which was also discussed in UN Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai in this March.
With this regard, the visit to NVOAD this time was so timely and effective for us who are now discussing how to make a new initiative on domestic disasters and the way of approach to the government.
